A little less confusion

Life on the road can have its confusing moments. Take for example our phone numbers. I have a Pennsylvania area code since I’m using the same phone number that we had when we had a stick house. Gary’s number is a Montana area code since we signed up for his service in Missoula, MT, and our Internet aircard has a Cincinnati, OH area code. Like I said, confusing.
Three years ago we became Florida “residents“, even though we have never actually lived there (except for doing SOWER projects). Last year we decided that having our “residence” in South Dakota would be a good move, so we signed up for a mail service in Rapid City and began the process of changing our address on credit cards, investments, you know, all that stuff. Unfortunately, “moving” to South Dakota also required that we completely change our health insurance provider and right about then Gary had his little (?) subdural hematoma episode. Suddenly changing health insurance policies did not seem like such a great idea. For reasons that seemed to make sense at the time when we were actually IN South Dakota, I went ahead and established residency in SD (e.g. got a SD driver’s license) and Gary kept his Florida residency. We called it our trial separation. 🙂 Ever since then, every time a credit card transaction asked for a zip code Gary would look at me – which card, which zip? When we crossed the border into Canada – where are we from? Um…..Pennsylvania? Florida? South Dakota? (My conclusion – if someone in a uniform asks the question, answer where your driver’s license and vehicle registration says you’re from. If an acquaintance asks, say Pennsylvania.) Apart from the zip code confusion (and the fact that it got so we couldn’t even remember either one correctly) it didn’t take us long to realize that any savings we might see in insurance, etc. would get eaten up with paying for two mail services and the additional mailings that would require.
So today was the day. I took my passport, SS card, and two bills that had my Florida address to the local DMV,

and once again I became a Florida Resident.

The trial separation is over. And it feels good to be at least a little bit less confused.